Oven range appliances generally include a cabinet that defines a cooking chamber for baking or broiling food items therein, as well as a cooktop positioned at a top portion of the cabinet for, e.g., grilling, boiling or frying food items thereon. To heat the cooking chamber, oven range appliances include heating elements, such as a bake heating element positioned at a bottom portion of the cooking chamber and/or a broil heating element positioned at a top portion of the cooking chamber. During operation of such heating elements, the cabinet and other components of the oven range appliance can be heated. In particular, an outer surface of the cabinet can be heated during operation of such heating elements.
The outer surface of the cabinet is preferably maintained below a threshold temperature during operation of the oven range appliance. Certain oven range appliances include a duct system that draws or pulls air into the cabinet for cooling the outer surface of the cabinet during operation of such oven range appliances. Specifically, certain oven range appliances define a cooling channel between, e.g., the cooking chamber and a side panel of the cabinet. Air may flow into the cooling chamber proximate a bottom end of the oven range appliance, and flow vertically upward through the cooling channel to maintain a surface of, e.g., the side panel of the cabinet below a desired temperature threshold.
However, in at least some of these oven range appliances, an airflow through the cooling channel tends to flow directly towards a rear end of the oven range appliance as such airflow rises to a top end of the oven range appliance. With such a configuration, nonuniform cooling may occur on a surface of the side panel. Therefore, a device providing for more uniform cooling of the surface of the side panel would be useful. More particularly, device for providing more uniform cooling of the surface of the side panel by more evenly distributing a cooling airflow through the cooling channel would be particularly beneficial.